Hon.  Allen  G.  Thurman, 


Before  the  Democratic  State  Convention 

OF 


t 


West  Virginia,  at  Grafton,  July  16th,  1868. 


-# 


[PnMisM  liy  tlie  Democratic  State  Execntiye  Committee  of  Ohio,] 


COLUMBUS,  OHIO: 
CRISIS  PRINT. 


OJ'Vu-.'z?-  r.L 


323,3 

T^s 


SPEECH 


OF 


HON.  ALLEN  G.  THORMAN, 


Mr.  President  and  Gentlemen  of  the  Convention — It  will  be  very  difficult 
for  me  to  speak  to  you  at  all,  for  I  come  here  after  eight  weeks  sickness;  and, 
unless  you  keep  perfect  silence,  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  be  heard. 

I  have  first  to  return  to  your  State  Executive  Committee,  and  to  yourselves, 
my  very  sincere  acknowledgments  for  the  honor  done  me  by  your  and  their 
invitation  to  be  here  and  address  you.  It  is  a  distinction  of  which  any  man, 
however  exalted,  might  well  be  proud;  and  it  is,  therefore,  the  more  incumb¬ 
ent  on  me,  a  mere  private  individual,  to  appreciate  and  acknowledge  it. 
I  do  so  most  gratefully ;  and  should  I  have  the  good  fortune  to  say  anything 
to-day  that  shall  be  borne  in  your  remembrance  hereafter,  and  serve  to  do 
any  good  to  this  common  and  imperiled  country  of  ours,  this  day  will  be  one 
forever  kindly  and  happily  remembered  by  me.  And  now,  my  friends,  without 
further  preface,  for  I  am  admonished  by  every  consideration  to  be  brief — by 
the  consideration  that  the  business  of  your  Convention  is  yet  unfinished — 
by  the  consideration  of  your  own  uncomfortable  position  in  this  sweltering 
atmosphere — by  the  consideration  of  the  distance  many  of  you  have  to  travel 
to  your  homes,  and  by  the  further  fact  that  you  have  to-day  heard  a  speech 
which  would  render  it  perfectly  excusable  in  me  were  I  to  say  to  you,  one 
and  all,  you  have  had  enough  for  this  day,  we  may  put  off  to  another  occa¬ 
sion  hearing  any  more. 

But  since  you  are  disposed  to  hear  me,  I  will, on  a  very  brief  space  of  time, 
present  to  you  some  facts  and  some  ideas  that  I  wish  you  to  bear  in  your 
memories,  and  to  consider,  as  American  citizens,  anxious  to  do  your  duty  to 
your  country,  whatever  are  or  have  been,  your  party  predilections.  And  if 
there  are  in  this  audience  any  gentlemen  of  the  Republican  or  Radical  party, 


53265 


4 


I  pray  tlieir  attention  as  much  as  that  of  any  Democrat  here ;  for  what  I  have 
to  say,  be  it  of  much  or  little  value,  as  much  interests  them  as  me,  or  any  one 
of  you. 

First,  then,  upon  the  subject  of  the  public  debt  and  public  taxation,  of 
which  you  have  heard  this  morning  in  the  lucid  and  comprehensive  remarks 
of  my  friend,  Mr.  Pendleton.  He  spoke  of  them  in  a  masterly  manner,  but 
it  would  be  impossible  for  him,  or  any  other  man,  in  the  limits  of  a  single 
speech — much  less  a  speech  of  an  hour — to  exhaust  this  great  subject. 
Therefore,  I  wish  to  call  your  attention  to  a  few  facts  in  addition  to  those 
presented  by  him,  and  a  few  comparisons  and  ideas,  also,  in  addition  to  those 
he  presented. 

First — What  is  the  amount  of  our  public  debt  ?  It  was  lately  stated  in 
the  newspapers  to  be  $2,500,000,000;  what  it  is  exactly  on  this  day  I  am 
unable  to  say,  because  the  Treasury  Department,  for  some  reason  or  another, 
is  particularly  dilatory  of  late  in  making  its  monthly  statements.  Perhaps 
it  may  arise  from  the  fact  that  the  last  monthly  statement  showed  an  in¬ 
crease  of  the  public  debt  of  over  $9,000,000  in  a  single  month,  and  that 
common  rumor  says  that  the  next  monthly  statement  will  show  an  increase 
of  $20,000,000.  Think  of  that,  my  friends,  if  you  have  not  become  utterly 
bewildered  by  these  great  sums  with  which  your  ears  are  assailed.  Nine  mil¬ 
lions  of  dollars  increase  of  public  debt  in  one  month!  A  sum  sufficient  to 
have  carried  on  the  Administration  in  the  days  of  General  J ackson  for  six 
entire  months ;  a  sum  with  which  he  carried  on  this  Government  in  all  its 
departments  for  the  space  ef  six  months  is  simply  the  increase — not  of  the 
expenditure  of  the  Government — but  the  increase  of  the  public  debt  in  the 
short  space  of  a  month.  But  what  is  this  debt  from  official  documents  ?  All 
the  figures  I  shall  give  you  will  be  from  an  official  document,  from  the  report 
of  the  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States  to  the  Congress  of  the 
United  States,  and  published  by  Congress.  On  November  1,  of  last  year — 
and  if  it  has  been  reduced  since,  it  has  not  been  to  any  great  degree  so  as  to 
relieve  the  people — the  public  debt  was  $2,625,502,848 ;  in  round  numbers, 
$2,626,000,000  was  the  admitted — mark  it,  the  admitted — public  debt  of  the 
United  States. 

How  much  debt  was  there  ?  Why,  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens,  Chairman  of 
the  Committee  of  Ways  and  Means,  declared,  in  his  place  on  the  floor  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  that,  taking  the  unaudited  debt  and  adding  to  it 
the  audited  debt  of  the  country,  the  debt  of  the  United  States  was  not  less 
than  $5,000,000,000.  But  suppose  they  pass  the  sponge  of  repudiation — 
these  men  who  are  denouncing  Mr.  Pendleton  as  a  repudiator  because  he 
wants  them  to  pay  five-twenties  in  the  money  promised  for  them — suppose 
they  pass  the  sponge  of  repudiation  over  all  this  unaudited  debt,  and  we  take 
the  actual  debt  at  the  amount  stated  $2,625,000,000  ;  then,  my  friends,  add 
to  that  the  debts  of  the  States,  the  debts  of  the  counties,  the  debts  of  the 


5 


cities,  the  debts  of  the  townships  and  towns,  to  say  nothing  about  the  debts 
of  the  great  corporations  of  the  country,  and  we,  the  people  of  the  United 
States,  who  recollect  when  Jackson  issued  his  proclamation,  that  the  Govern¬ 
ment  of  the  United  States  owed  not  a  dollar  in  the  world  ;  we,  who  remem¬ 
ber  that  full  well,  find  that  within  our  short  lives  we  have  become  the  most 
deeply  involved  and  most  heavily  taxed  people  on  the  globe.  [A  voice ; 
“  That’s  true.”]  No  wonder  these  gentlemen  seek  to  avoid  the  issue  of  taxa¬ 
tion,  and  have  now  started  the  theory  that  the  only  question  in  issue  this 
year  is,  whether  we  shall  have  another  civil  war  or  not,  to  frighten — I  will 
not  say  old  women,  I  will  not  be  so  disrespectful  to  the  ladies — but  to  fright¬ 
en  men,  whose  hearts  are  so  timid  that  an  army  of  women,  with  broom  sticks, 
could  chase  them  out  of  the  country.  [Laughter.] 

Compare  our  public  debt  with  that  of  Great  Britain,  heretofore  the  most 
deeply  indebted  country  in  the  world,  and  compare  our  resources  with  hers, 
and  see  how  the  thing  stands.  The  debt  of  Great  Britain  is  four  thousand 
million  dollars.  The  admitted  debt  of  the  United  States,  with  the  State 
debts,  the  municipal  and  those  I  have  alluded  to  added,  make  it  equal  to  the 
debt  of  Great  Britain.  But  Great  Britain  has  36,000,000  people  within  the 
British  Isles  alone,  and  in  India  and  her  Colonies  200,000,000  more,  while 
we  have  but  31,000,000.  So  that  with  but  31,000,000  of  people,  we  owe  as 
much  money  as  Great  Britain  with  236,000,000  of  people. 

Again,  my  friends,  look  at  the  rate  of  taxation.  The  rate  of  taxation — I 
take  it  from  an  official  document,  the  report  of  the  Special  Commissioner  of 
Revenue,  published  by  Congress,  and  which  contains  a  comparative  table  of 
taxation  in  this  country  and  Europe — the  rate  of  taxation  in  Great  Britain 
is  ninety  cents  on  one  hundred  dollars ;  the  rate  of  taxation  by  the  Federal 
Government  alone,  for  the  fiscal  year  1866-7,  was  393  cents,  more  than  three 
dollars  more  than  the  taxation  in  what  we  used  to  call  “  tax-ridden  Great 
Britain.”  “Oh,  but,”  says  some  one,  “surely,  Mr.  Thurman,  you  must  be 
mistaken.  I  pay  no  $3  93  in  the  hundred  dollars  to  the  General  Govern¬ 
ment.” 

If  you,  in  your  particular  case,  do  not  pay  it,  the  whole  country,  taken 

_  •  « 

together,  does  pay  at  that  rate  upon  the  whole  of  the  personal  and  real  estate 
in  the  country,  as  shown  by  this  official  report.  “  But,”  says  another  man, 
“  I  have  heard  another  say  on  the  stump,  and  some  of  our  Radical  friends 
argue,  that  all  this  only  concerns  the  rich  man ;  that  the  poor  don’t  pay  any 
taxes,  and,  therefore,  this  heavy  debt  and  taxation  don’t  concern  them.” 
Why,  my  friends,  it  would  be  a  great  deal  nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  so  far 
from  labor  paying  no  taxes,  labor  pays  them  all.  [“  That’s  true.”]  And 
why  is  it  that  labor  pays  the  taxes?  It  is  for  this  simple  reason — I  can 
prove  it  by  Scripture :  “  In  the  sweat  of  thy  face  shalt  thou  eat  thy  bread,” 

said  God  to  man.  [A  voice,  “You  have  proved  it.”] 


6 


You  can  not  produce  one  cent  of  wealth;  you  can  not  add  the  value  of 
one  farthing  to  the  wealth  of  any  country,  except  by  labor.  [“  That’s  true.”] 
There  is  no  other  mode  known  to  men  by  which  the  wealth  of  a  country  can 
be  increased  one  dollar  except  by  labor.  A  man  may  have  the  finest  inven¬ 
tive  mind  the  w'orld  ever  knew,  he  may  conceive  the  most  useful  invention 
the  world  ever  saw,  but  until  labor  comes  to  build  the  machine  that  he  con¬ 
ceives,  and  labor  comes  to  work  it,  it  does  not  add  one  dollar  to  the  wealth 
of  the  country.  Take  a  man  who  lives  simply  upon  the  interest  of  his 
money,  and  neither  directly  nor  indirectly  produces  anything.  I  say  this  not 
to  produce  ill-feeling  toward  any  class  of  men.  Take  the  case  of  a  rich 
bondholder  who  works  not,  labors  not,  neither  does  he  spin,  yet  is  as  fine  as 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory.  [Laughter.] 

Take  him  sitting  in  his  comfortable  arm-chair,  doing  nothing  but  receiving 
the  taxes  drawn  from  the  pockets  of  the  people;  out  of  them  being  supported 
in  his  wants,  his  necessities  and  his  luxuries.  That  man  does  not  add  to  the 
wealth  of  the  country  as  much  as  the  poverty-stricken  little  boy  in  the  hills 
of  Virginia  who  follows  his  father’s  plow  and  drops  the  grain  in  the  furrowTs. 
For  that  grain  of  corn  the  little  boy  drops  will  become  a  lusty  stalk  of  corn, 
bearing  its  golden  ears,  and  adds  just  that  much  to  the  wealth  of  the  coun¬ 
try.  But  the  man  who  does  nothing  in  the  world  but  draw  interest  from 
others,  who,  to  support  himself,  neither  directly  nor  indirectly  labors,  or  pro¬ 
duces  by  labor — that  man  adds  nothing  to  the  wealth  of  the  country.  And, 
as  you  can  not  produce  wealth  except  by  labor,  and  you  can  not  pay  taxes 
without  wealth,  it  is  just  for  that  reason  that,  in  the  long  run,  it  is  labor  that 
provides  the  means  to  pay  the  taxes.  [“  That’s  so.”] 

But  that  is  not  all,  my  friends.  Labor  is  not  only  necessary  to  create  this 
wealth,  but  labor  contributes  taxes  in  other  modes,  as  I  will  show  you.  I 
suppose  there  is  no  Copperhead  in  this  town  who  would  not  like  to  owm  six 
shirts ;  I  will  assume  that,  though  there  may  be  some  who  have  not  that 
many.  [Laughter.  A  voice — “I  have  only  one.”]  And  if  this  Radical 
Government  continues  much  longer  you  will  not  have  even  that.  [Immense 
laughter.]  I  will  give  you  an  illustration  that  I  gave  many  times  last  year, 
and  challenged  criticism,  but  I  never  got  any  one  to  deny  its  accuracy,  for 
no  one  could  do  it.  Well,  if  there  is  any  ambitious  young  Copperhead  here, 
let  him  step  over  to  the  merchant  and  ask  him,  “  What  will  you  charge  me 
for  eighteen  yards  of  muslin,  with  which  to  make  me  six  shirts  ?”  The  mer¬ 
chant  will  probably  say,  “  Four  dollars  ” — it  may  be  a  little  lower  now.  The 
young  Copperhead  says :  “  My  dear  Mr.  Merchant,  how  is  this  ?  Eight  years 
ago  I  bought  just  eighteen  yards  to  make  six  shirts,  and  you  only  charged 
me  two  dollars ;  how  is  it  you  now  charge  me  four  dollars  ?”  If  the  mer¬ 
chant  understands  the  matter  and  is  an  honest  man,  he  explains  to  him  the 
truth  in  this  wise :  “  Why,  my  dear  customer,  it  is  true  that  eight  years  ago 
I  sold  you  eighteen  yards  of  muslin  for  two  dollars,  and  that  now  I  ask  you 


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twice  that  sum  for  the  same  amount  of  goods  ;  but  you  must  recollect  that 
Uncle  Sam  has  come  along  and  taxed  raw  cotton  three  cents  a  pound,  and 
the  producer  of  that  cotton,  when  he  pays  that  tax,  puts  it  on  the  price  of  the 
cotton,  or  he  would  lose  money  by  it.”  The  manufacturer  buys  the  cotton 
from  the  producer,  and  in  the  price  pays  back  to  the  producer  the  three 
cents  tax  he  had  paid.  Then  comes  Uncle  Sam  to  the  manufacturer,  and 
says,  “  My  dear  Mr.  Shoddy,  [laughter]  I  did  you  a  great  many  good  turns 
during  the  war;  I  bought  your  shoes  up  in  Massachusetts,  and  I  paid  you 
the  full  price,  though  they  did  not  last  above  a  forty-eight  hours’  march ;  I 
bought  your  stuff  for  uniforms,  and  the  first  time  the  boys  stooped  down  to 
drink  they  hadn’t  whole  pantaloons  on  any  longer.  Now,  I  have  done  you, 
Mr.  Manufacturer,  a  great  many  good  turns,  and  I  want  you  to  do  me  a  good 
turn.  I  am  hard  up,  and  therefore  I  have  laid  a  tax  upon  every  yard  of 
shirting  you  may  make  out  of  that  cotton  you  bought.  And  Mr.  Manufac¬ 
turer  pays  the  tax.  Next  comes  the  merchant,  and  he  finds,  in  the  price  he 
pays,  the  tax  that  was  paid  by  the  man  who  raised  the  cotton,  and  the  man 
who  manufactured  it.  Then  comes  Uncle  Sam  to  the  merchant,  and  says: 
*1  know  you  are  truly  loyal  [applause  and  laughter],  but  if  you  are  not 
truly  loyal,  that  is  so  much  the  more  reason  for  grinding  you  down  ;  so,  loyal 
or  not  loyal,  you  must  pay  me  a  tax  on  all  you  sell.”  The  merchant  has  no 
help;  he  pays  the  tax,  and  he  claps  that  on  the  price;  and  so  when  the 
young  Copperhead  comes  and  gives  four  dollars  for  his  shirts,  he  has  three 
separate  taxes  to  pay  in  that  price  of  four  dollars.  So  in  the  end,  the  man 
who  puts  the  shirt  on  his  back  is  the  man  who  pays  the  taxes.  And  so  with 
everything  you  wear.  There  is  scarcely  one  thing  you  have  on,  from  the 
crown  of  your  head  to  the  soles  of  your  feet,  upon  which  you  have  not  paid  to 
the  United  States  from  three  to  four  taxes. 

It  will  not  do,  therefore,  for  these  people  to  say  that  the  laboring  men  pay 
no  taxes.  Until  they  cease  to  wear  clothes,  until  they  cease  to  eat  and  drink, 
until  they  cease  to  die  and  be  buried  in  Christian  burial,  they  will  pay  tax 
under  this  Radical  rule,  if  continued,  on  all  they  eat,  on  all  they  drink,  on 
all  they  wear,  on  the  medicine  they  take  in  sickness,  and  on  the  coffin  in 
which  they  are  buried  after  death.  [Cries  of  “  That’s  so,”  and  cheers.] 

Let  us  look  at  another  thing.  What  is  the  amount  of  money  drawn  by 
our  General  Government  alone  out  of  the  pockets  of  the  people?  Now  here 
again  I  speak  by  the  official  record  for  the  last  fiscal  year,  1866-7,  the  official 
reports  of  which  have  been  published,  the  receipts  were,  in  round  numbers, 
$622,799,000  paid  into  the  Treasury  of  the  United  States.  If  you  take  from 
that  amount  the  sum  received  as  premium  on  the  sales  of  gold,  it  will 
leave  the  amount  drawn  from  the  pockets  of  the  people,  by  taxation,  at  over 
$579,000,000,  in  round  numbers  $580,000,000.  Now,  my  friends,  just  look 
at  that ;  $580,000,000  drawn  from  the  pockets  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States  by  the  Federal  Government  alone  in  one  single  year;  while  in  Great 


8 


Britain,  the  value  of  whose  property,  real  and  personal  within  the  British 
Islands  alone  is  estimated  to  be  two  and  a  half  times  that  of  the  property  of 
the  United  States,  the  amount  drawn  from  the  people  by  that  Government 
was  only  $354,000,000.  There  are  drawn  from  the  pockets  of  the  American 
people  over  $200,000,000  a  year  more  than  are  drawn  from  the  pockets  of 
the  British  people ;  although  the  value  of  the  property  in  the  United  States, 
according  to  the  census  of  1860,  was  only  $14,000,000,000,  and  the  value  of 
property  in  the  British  Isles  was  $36,000,000,000. 

There  has  been  a  great  attempt  to  show — made  by  the  people  who  are  in¬ 
terested  to  make  it  appear  that  a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing — (I 
never  knew  any  man  so  understand  his  own  debts) — that  to  pay  the  debt  in 
gold  is  just  as  easy  as  to  whistle  Yankee  Doodle;  there  has  been  an  attempt  to 
show  that  the  census-takers  did  not  understand  their  business,  and  that  the 
property  of  this  country  is  worth  a  great  deal  more  than  fourteen  thousand 
million  dollars.  The  census  takers  in  1860  understood  their  business  just  as 
well  as  those  writing  in  the  interest  of  the  bondholders  understand  their  busi¬ 
ness.  I  think  that  the  aggregate  value  of  the  property  of  this  country,  so  far 
from  having  increased  since  1860,  is  not  as  much  to-day,  at  a  gold  valuation, 
as  in  that  year.  In  the  first  place,  in  that  fourteen  thousand  millions  of  prop¬ 
erty  in  1860,  the  negroes  were  put  down  at  two  thousand  million ;  [a  voice, 
“  That’s  gone/']  and  lands  that  can  now  be  bought  at  from  five  to  ten  dollars 
an  acre  because  they  have  been  laid  waste  by  war  and  this  radical  policy, 
then  could  not  be  bought  for  less  than  fifty,  seventy-five  or  one  hundred  dol¬ 
lars  an  acre. 

Have  you  any  idea  of  the  impoverishment  of  the  South  ?  Let  me  mention 
one  thing,  which  speaks  without  any  mistake  at  all.  It  is  this  fact:  We  have 
the  most  inquisitorial,  searching  and  vexatious  tax  system  under  the  Federal 
Government  that  any  people  ever  saw.  It  follows  a  man  wherever  he  goes ; 
it  inquires  about  every  thing  he  has.  If  his  wife  has  made  a  pound  of  but¬ 
ter,  it  demands  that  that  shall  be  put  down  as  income.  If  the  old  grand¬ 
mother  plucks  a  goose,  and  sells  the  feathers  to  the  merchant,  to  get  the 
luxury  of  a  little  tea,  not  only  the  poor  old  goose,  but  the  feathers  must  be 
taxed.  These  inquisitorial  men  have  ransacked  this  country,  from  one  end 
to  the  other,  to  find  every  particle  of  property  they  could  possibly  tax.  And 
how  much  have  they  found  in  the  Southern  States  ? 

They  have  found  so  little  property  there  that  the  State  of  Ohio  pays  more 
than  five  millions  of  taxes  to  the  Federal  Government  beyond  the  entire 
amount  of  taxes  paid  in  the  Southern  States.  The  county  of  Hamilton,  Mr. 
Pendleton’s  own  county,  paid  $1,100,000  more  taxes  the  last  fiscal  year,  into 
the  Treasury  of  the  United  States,  than  eight  of  the  Southern  States.  Now, 
great  God,  what  a  picture  does  that  present  of  the  impoverishment  of  these 
Southern  States,  It  tells  more  than  any  thing  else  can  do.  There  are  these 
harpies  of  Uncle  Sam  ransacking  that  country  everywhere  for  something  to 


9 


tax,  and  they  can  find  in  all  these  ten  States  less  than  in  Ohio  alone. 
[“Give  us  the  Union.”]  Yes,  my  friends, give  us  a  Democratic  policy ;  that 
will  not  only  restore  a  union  of  territory,  but  a  union  of  the  hearts  of  the 
people.  Those  Southern  people  are  men  of  our  own  race.  Ssay  to  them : — 

You  fought  for  what  you  thought  was  a  right  cause;  but  we  did  not.  We 
conquered  you  in  battle,  for  we  had  the  strength,  and  you  submitted  like 
honorable  men  in  good  faith ;  henceforth,  then,  and  forever  let  us  be  good 
friends.  [Loud  applause.]  Henceforth  and  ever,  you  shall  have  the  security 
of  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States ;  the  security  of  law ;  the  security  of 
the  justice  and  majesty  of  the  Government.  You  shall  have  this  protection. 
Say  that  to  this  people,  and  they  will  have  heart  to  go  to  work ;  and  that 
land  now  desert  and  poverty-stricken  as  it  is,  will  soon  blossom  as  once  it 
did,  and  richness  and  prosperity  be  seen  from  one  end  of  it  to  the  other. 
[“Glory  to  heaven !”  Great  laughter  and  cheers.] 

Why,  my  friends,  will  you  please  to  recollect  that  it  is  not  six  months  since 
the  cry  of  confiscation  was  yet  heard  in  the  halls  of  Congress,  and  we  know 
that  the  man  who  uttered  that  cry  the  longest  is  the  most  persistent  man  on 
the  face  of  this  Republic.  [Cries  of  “Butler.”]  Mr.  Thaddeus  Stevens. 
Now,  we  know  that  confiscation  has  hung  over  the  people  of  the  South.  The 
idea  of  taking  their  lands  and  dividing  them  up,  and  giving  them  to  the  ne¬ 
groes  in  forty-acre  lots,  has  ever  been  present  before  them.  Now,  I  appeal 
to  you — for  I  see  before  me  thousands  of  men  whom  I  take  to  be  farmers — 
I  appeal  to  you,  with  what  heart  could  you  work  your  lands  ;  with  what 
heart  could  you  lay  out  your  money  in  improving  them ;  with  what  heart 
could  you  build  fences,  houses  and  barns,  if  you  thought  that  the  very  next 
Congress  that  sits  might  take  away  your  lands  and  give  them  to  the  negroes  ? 
This  has  just  been  the  condition  of  the  South.  It  is  my  solemn  belief  that 
if,  when  the  Southern  armies  surrendered,  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  had  acted  toward  the  Southern  people  with  that  magnanimity  and 
wrise  statesmanship  that  ought  to  have  prevailed ;  if  it  had  said  to  them, 
“We  fought  this  battle  as  we  resolved  in  Congress  to  do,  not  to  persecute 
you,  not  to  destroy  you,  not  to  interfere  with  the  rights  of  States  or  individ¬ 
uals,  but  simply  to  maintain  our  Constitution  and  the  integrity  of  the  Re¬ 
public,  and  now  that  you  have  laid  down  your  arms,  now  that  you  have  ac¬ 
knowledged  your  cause  to  be  lost,  we  will  show  you  that  we  are  as  true  as  our 
words — that  we  are  once  more  brothers ;  and  wTe  will  see  that  the  rights  and 
dignity  of  no  single  State  shall  be  impaired.  Go  to  your  homes,  beat  your 
swords  into  plow-shares,  and  instead  of  tearing  the  bosoms  of  brothers  with 
the  weapons  of  war,  and  breaking  up  mind  and  body  which  God  has  given 
you,  go  to  your  lands,  and  do  as  he  has  told  you,  “Out  of  this  earth  you 
shall  draw  your  bread  ” — had  that  been  said  to  the  people  of  the  South,  I 
tell  you,  my  friends,  that  we  would  have  been  more  firmly  united  this  day 
than  before  the  war  broke  out.  [Cries  of  “  That’s  so,”  and  loud  cheers.]  I 


10 


say  it  to  you  upon  mature  reflection,  for  the  war  has  corrected  many  errors 
that  prevailed ;  for  instance,  there  were  too  many  Southern  people  who,  be¬ 
ing  a  very  chivalrous  people  themselves,  thought  the  Northerners  would  not 
fight.  The  war  has  corrected  that.  While  many  Northerners  thought  that 
the  Southerners  were  a  set  of  mere  sportsmen  and  braggarts,  and  that  they 
would  not  fight.  Well,  those  people  got  their  ideas  corrected,  too.  [Great 
laughter.]  Men  of  sense  on  both  sides  knew  that  both  sides  would  fight. 
Men  of  sense  knew  that  those  in  whom  ran  the  blood  of  those  heroes  wrho 
achieved  the  independence  of  1776,  never  failed  to  fight  when  it  was  for 
their  interests  or  their  honor.  But  there  were  people  who  had  these  mis¬ 
taken  notions,  and  the  war  corrected  them,  and  made  the  people  of  each 
section  respect  those  of  the  other  more  than  they  had  theretofore  done  ;  and 
it  might  have  made  us  a  band  of  brothers,  from  the  St.  Lawrence  to  the 
Gulf,  had  the  right  policy  been  pursued.  [Cheers.]  That  was  the  feeling 
of  the  people  and  the  feeling  of  the  armies  on  both  sides,  until  the  Radical 
politicians  set  to  work  to  inflame  the  hearts  of  their  party  and  pervert  their 
judgment,  and  pervert  their  very  souls  so  as  to  make  them  do  wrong.  Then 
commenced  that  series  of  Congressional  measures.  Then  was  that  fourteenth 
amendment  of  the  Constitution  proposed,  when  it  was  known  full  well  there 
was  not  a  Southern  man  who  wTas  fit  to  hold  up  his  face  in  God’s  sunlight 
and  look  his  neighbor  in  the  face  who  could  consent  to  vote  for  it;  a  thing 
that  required  every  man  to  write  his  own  dishonor  and  the  dishonor  of  every 
man  in  whom  he  had  trusted  or  confided ;  to  write  their  own  dishonor  in  the 
Constitution  of  their  country;  an  amendment  that  required  every  father  to 
write  that  his  son,  who  fell  in  battle  in  support  of  the  lost  cause,  was  a  man 
who  deserved  to  be  disfranchised  in  the  land  that  gave  him  birth ;  and  yet 
we  asked  the  father  to  assent  to  that  in  the  Constitution  of  his  country. 
They  knew  it  could  never  be  adopted  ;  they  never  intended  it  should  be 
adopted.  They  proposed  it  that  it  might  be  rejected,  and  that  they  might 
prevent  the  restoration  of  the  Union,  and  have  a  pretext  for  keeping  the 
States  out  of  the  exercise  of  their  rights.  It  was  a  mere  trick,  an  artifice  ; 
but  it  served  its  purpose.  It  wTas  rejected ;  and  the  refusal  of  the  Southern 
people  to  write  their  owrn  dishonor  in  the  fundamental  law  of  the  land  was 
made  the  apology  and  the  excuse  for  those  restrictive  acts  which  have  fol¬ 
lowed  ;  the  whole  sum  and  substance  of  which  is  to  put  the  heel  of  the  negro 
upon  the  neck  of  the  wThite  man.  And  why  should  they  wash  to  put  the 
heel  of  the  negro  on  the  neck  of  the  white  man  ?  For  the  good  of  the  ne¬ 
gro?  They  are  foolish  to  think  so,  or  they  are  the  most  willfully  deceived 
men  in  the  world.  It  is  not  the  negro  that  these  Radical  politicians  love. 
They  put  an  end  to  what  is  called  slavery  in  order  to  institute  political  slav¬ 
ery,  in  which  they  shall  own  six  or  seven  hundred  thousand  voters  with  black 
skins.  They  would  no  more  allow  the  negro  to  vote  if  they  thought  he 
would  vote  with  the  Southern  white  men  than  they  would  think  of  permit- 


11 


ting  him  to  enter  their  family  circle,  to  make  him  the  husband  of  their 
daughters  or  the  wives  of  their  sons.  Not  the  least  bit  of  it  in  the  world. 
It  is  because  they  want  the  negro  to  vote — not  as  the  negro  may  please,  not 
as  the  negro’s  instinct  may  teach  him,  or  interest  dictate — but  they  want  him 
to  vote  as  Loyal  Leagues,  inaugurated  and  kept  up  by  Freedmen’s  Bureaus, 
kept  up  by  carpet-bag  adventurers,  may  dictate.  It  is  because  they  want 
him  as  a  voting-machine  of  that  kind  to  keep  them  in  power  and  enable 
them  to  rule  us  of  the  North,  and  perpetuate  this  taxation,  perpetuate  this 
debt,  and  perpetuate  this  overthrow  of  the  labor  of  the  country.  It  is  for 
this  purpose  that  they  want  the  negro  to  vote.  It  is  no  love  of  the  negro. 
[Cries  of  “  That  is  so.”] 

I  would  here  call  your  attention  to  a  remark  of  one  of  the  ablest  of  their 
Senators,  who,  a  few  days  since,  in  Congress,  said  that  we  are  on  the  eve  oi 
another  rebellion.  If  we  do  not  submit  to  all  the  unconstitutional  acts  that 
Congress  may  see  fit  to  pass,  and  if  the  people  are  disposed  to  elect  a  Presi¬ 
dent  who  is  opposed  to  these  unconstitutional  acts,  then,  although  we  may 
do  nothing  in  the  way  of  taking  up  arms,  they  will  take  up  arms  in  order 
to  sustain  their  unconstitutional  acts.  That’s  what  it  comes  to,  when  plainly 
stated.  [“  If  they  do,  we’ll  whip  ’em.”  Laughter  and  cheers.] 

Now,  considering  the  Radicals  never  had  more  than  about  one-third  of 
the  people  of  the  United  States,  I  think  if  they  extend  the  area  of  the  fight¬ 
ing  ground  they  may  possibly  get  the  worst  of  it.  [Laughter  and  cheers.] 
But  I  am  for  peace ;  I  don’t  want  any  war ;  and  I  believe  we  are  going  to 
succeed  without  it ;  and  I  think  those  gentlemen  who  are  so  full  of  fight 
will  have  to  submit,  and  submit  peaceably ;  and,  speaking  figuratively,  I 
think  they  may  soon  desire  to  know  upon  what  terms  we  will  permit  them 
to  surrender.  [Loud  laughter  and  cheers.]  That  will  be  a  matter  for  you 
ito  consider,  whether  you  will  require  an  unconditional  surrender,  or  whether 
you  will  allow  them  to  march  out  of  office  with  all  the  honors  of  war. 
[Laughter.] 

I  think,  and  I  say  it  after  the  maturest  reflection — and  I  shall  be  very 
happy  to  find  I  am  mistaken,  if  it  be  that  I  am  in  the  wrong — I  do  not  be¬ 
lieve  it  possible  that  this  Radical  policy  can  prevail  without  sooner  or  later 
producing  a  war  of  races  in  the  South,  and  the  extermination  of  the  negro. 
It  is  my  firm  belief  that  these  Radicals  are  the  worst  enemies  the  negroes 
ever  had.  [“  That’s  so.”]  It  is  not  in  human  nature  that  the  white  race, 
and  we  belong  to  the  most  persistent  race  the  world  has  ever  seen — a  race 
that,  since  it  left  the  shores  of  the  Caspian  Sea,  fourteen  centuries  ago,  has 
never  met  an  obstacle  that  it  did  not  overcome — it  is  truly  impossible,  I  say, 
to  believe  that  this  race  of  white  men  can  submit  to  see  itself  ruled  by  a 
race  that  has  been  the  most  degraded  of  all  it  has  pleased  Providence  to  put 
upon  this  earth.  [Cries  of  “  Never.”]  Why,  good  God,  just  think  of  it ! 
Here  are  these  States  represented  in  Congress,  in  Gubernatorial  chairs,  in 


12 

tlieir  Legislatures,  by  negroes,  or  by  men  who  could  not  get  offices  in  the 
North,  and  so  run  South  to  get  them. 

Now  is  not  that  too  bad?  Suppose  it  were  proposed  to  rule  you  in  West 
Virginia  and  us  in  Ohio  by  a  set  of  Southern  carpet-baggers,  with  an  impor¬ 
tation  of  Ku-Klux  and  niggers,  and  turn  Governor  Boreman  and  the  officers 
of  West  Virginia  out,  and  put  in  a  parcel  of  big  negroes  and  another  parcel 
of  carpet-baggers,  don’t  you  think  that  they  would  find  that  it  was  another 
ox  that  was  gored  ?  How  would  they  like  that  kind  of  medicine  ?  [Cries 
of  “  Not  very  well,”  and  laughter.]  And  yet  this  is  the  way  the  people  are 
being  treated  in  the  South. 

But  do  they  expect  peace  ?  Have  they  ever  read  England’s  history?  Has 
not  England  been  engaged  in  trying  to  hold  people  by  force,  instead  of 
binding  them  by  affection  ?  England  has  been  at  this  work  ever  since  the 
reign  of  Henry  VII.  She  has  spent  millions  upon  millions  of  treasure,  and 
oceans,  I  was  going  to  say,  of  blood,  to  get  and  keep  Ireland  down  under  her 
heel,  and  what  has  been  the  result?  Now,  after  centuries  and  centuries  of 
military  despotism,  it  is  shown  there,  as  it  has  been  in  the  United  States  (for 
carpet-bag  rule  has  been  tried  there  as  wrell  as  here),  that  after  all  that,  Pat, 
even  from  the  shores  of  America,  when  he  raises  the  cry  of  Fenian,  causes 
the  Engish  monarch  to  tremble  on  her  throne.  [Cheers.]  Can  not  they  see 
it  in  Poland,  where  every  generation  of  young  men  that  grows  up  brings 
about  another  revolution,  or  an  attempt  to  shake  off  the  chains  of  despotism.? 
Can  not  they  see  it  in  the  example  of  Austria  and  Plungary?  Can  not  they 
see  it  wherever  it  has  been  tried,  from  the  earliest  dawn  of  history  down  to 
this  very  time,  that  the  idea  of  holding  a  great  people  together  by  mere 
force,  against  their  affections,  against  their  sympathies,  and,  more  than  all, 
against  their  honor,  that  this  is  a  thing  that  God  in  his  providence  intends 
shall  not  exist  permanently  upon  this  earth  ?  [“  That’s  so,”  and  cheers.] 

If  you  are  to  hold  the  Southern  people — and  I  trust,  in  God,  that  no  one 
who  is  now  living,  or  wrho  will  live  for  a  thousand  years  to  come,  will  see  us 
dissevered — but  if  you  will  hold  the  people  of  this  country  together,  as  we 
want  to  hold  them  together,  you  can  only  do  it  by  treating  each  other  wTith 
mutual  respect,  with  mutual  confidence,  and  with  a  regard  for  the  mutual 
interest  of  them  all.  In  other  words,  you  can  only  do  it  by  acting  as  you 
would  be  acted  by.  “  But,”  says  some  pious  gentleman,  “  if  you  are  in  favor 
of  so  treating  white  men,  why  not  treat  the  negro  as  well  ?  Are  we  not  all 
of  one  blood?”  And  yet  this  man  does  not  understand  the  meaning  of  the 
text  he  quotes.  “  Is  not  our  colored  brother  a  man  and  a  brother  ?”  he  asks, 
and,  at  the  same  time,  holds  his  nose  as  he  walks  by  the  negro.  [Laughter.] 
“  Has  he  not  an  everlasting  soul  ?”  says  another  man,  who  shows  that  he  has 
no  soul  himself  by  cheating  the  negro  the  first  chance  he  gets. 

In  answer  to  all  this  argument,  I  say  when  I  refuse  to  give  the  negro  the 
right  to  vote  I  do  him  no  more  injustice — nay,  I  don’t  do  him  a  tithe  of  the 


13 


injustice  you  all  do  when  you  deprive  your  intelligent  and  patriotic  mothers 
and  sisters  of  the  right  of  casting  a  vote ;  when  I  say  I  am  not  willing  to  put 
the  negro  politically  above  my  wifb  and  sister  and  daughter  [applause  and 
cries  of  “Never,  never!”],  I  think  I  have  answered  it  enough  when  I  have 
said  that.  But,  further  than  that,  I  answer  it  by  the  history  of  this  world, 
which  has  but  one  side  to  this  question,  and  what  is  that  ?  History  has  been 
written  for  more  than  four  thousand  years,  and  in  all  that  time  there  is  not 
one  single  recorded  instance  of  a  civilized  negro  government.  [“  There  never 
will  be.”]  The  negro  race  is  perhaps  as  old  as  our  race,  and  yet,  in  all  that 
time,  with  the  same  advantages  that  the  white  race  has  had,  with  the  same 
advantages  that  the  yellow  races  of  Asia  have  had,  the  negro  race  has  never, 
in  a  single  instance,  organized  and  maintained  a  civilized  government.  [A 
voice,  “  And  never  will.”] 

But  that  is  not  all.  There  has  never  been  an  attempt  made  of  a  govern¬ 
ment  of  mixed  races,  like  the  negroes  and  whites ;  the  attempt  never  has 
been  made  anywhere  that  it  has  not  proved  a  most  signal  failure.  It  does 
not  require  that  they  should  be  as  opposite  as  white  and  black.  Look  at 
Hayti.  The  negroes  got  free  there,  and  what  was  the  first  thing  they  did  after 
they  became  free  ?  Some  were  negroes  and  some  were  mulattoes,  and  the 
first  thing  they  did,  these  negroes  and  mulattoes  began  to  quarrel,  and  the 
negroes,  being  in  the  majority,  drove  the  mulattoes  to  the  other  end  of  the 
island.  There  they  are  to-day,  and  what  kind  of  a  government  have  they  ? 
You  can  not  open  a  newspaper  that  contains  the  arrival  of  a  ship  from 
Hayti  that  does  not  give  you  an  account  of  some  war  or  bloodshed  going 
on  in  that  island.  They  have  played  Republic  and  they  have  played  Em¬ 
pire,  with  the  Emperor  Soulouque  and  the  Duke  of  some  grand  name  or 
other,  and  Her  Highness  of  some  other  grand  name.  They  have  played  all 
that;  and  they  have  strutted  in  gold  epaulettes,  and  have  worn  more  gold 
lace  than  any  set  of  people  on  the  face  of  this  earth  ever  did.  They  have 
tried  all  kinds  of  government,  but  General  This  kicks  out  General  That 
the  end  of  a  month  or  two,  and  they  are  just  now  in  the  midst  of  a  revolu¬ 
tion  in  which  the  Generals  on  either  side  are  trying  how  many  negroes  they 
can  mutually  kill.  [Applause.] 

But,  gentlemen,  that  is  not  all.  It  is  not  all  that  the  negroes  have  never 
originated  or  maintained  a  civilized  government;  that  they  have  never  suc¬ 
cessfully  mixed  with  other  people,  and  been  admitted  to  an  equality  of  po¬ 
litical  rights ;  there  is  something  still  more  striking.  Of  all  things  in  this 
world,  perhaps,  that  fortifies  religion  and  a  belief  in  the  existence  of  the  soul, 
that  makes  us  think  we  are  not  all  of  earth,  and  that,  when  we  are  buried 
once  more  in  the  bosom  of  mother  earth,  we  do  not  merely  lie  down  and  rot 
like  the  brutes — that  which,  more  than  all  other  things  except  divine  revela¬ 
tion  itself,  teaches  us  immortality,  is  that  wonderful  intellect  of  the  human 
race,  and  its  works  that  seem  like,  not  the  works  of  men,  but  of  the  gods 


14 


themselves.  Go  into  one  of  those  great  mills  at  Wheeling,  at  Pittsburg,  at 
Lowell  or  Philadelphia,  and  see  their  wonderful  machinery  ;  see  the  precision 
with  which  it  acts,  the  certainty  with  which  its  ends  are  attained,  the  iron 
fingers  doing  the  work  of  ten  thousand  human  beings,  all  working  with  the 
harmony  almost  of  the  solar  system  itself.  See  your  mighty  steamboats  on 
the  river ;  your  vessels  that  plow  the  ocean ;  your  iron  railways  that  convey 
you  over  the  country  with  the  speed  of  the  eagle’s  wing ;  your  electric  wire 
that  spans  the  globe — wrhen  you  see  all  this,  and  see  that  it  comes  out  of  the 
brain  of  man,  he  must  be  a  cold  reasoner  who  says  that  man  is  nothing  but 
a  clod  of  the  earth.  But  of  all  the  inventions  that  have  proved  useful  in 
this  world,  that  have  either  beautified  or  adorned,  and  rendered  it  habitable 
or  profitable  to  man,  no  single  invention  ever  came  out  of  the  negro  brain. 

Now,  is  it  not  wonderful?  Here  are  the  yellow  races.  Half  of  the  arts 
were  discovered  by  the  Chinese.  The  loom  was  an  Eastern  invention.  Gun¬ 
powder  is  said  to  have  been  invented  by  the  Chinese.  It  is  claimed  that  they 
discovered  the  mariner’s  compass  before  we  did.  The  art  of  printing,  in  a 
rude  form,  was  first  discovered  there.  They  had  astronomical  tables  and 
made  calculations  when  all  Europe  was  a  wilderness.  This  was  the  yellow 
race.  What  has  our  race  done  ?  What  have  been  its  inventions  to  amelio¬ 
rate  the  condition  of  the  earth,  to  make  it  fruitful,  beautiful  and  glorious? 
What  it  has  done  to  elevate  man,  to  improve  his  mind  and  his  morals,  and 
to  increase  his  happiness,  it  is  not  necessary  for  me  to  stand  here  and  recount. 
We  know  of  what  our  own  race  is  capable;  and  we  know  this  striking  fact, 
that  no  great  invention  ever  came  from  a  negro’s  brain.  What  further  proof 
do  you  want  that  the  negro  is  not  a  proper  person  to  intrust  with  the  govern¬ 
ment  of  this  country? 

But  the  Radicals  intend  that  the  bayonet  shall  make  you  trust  them. 
[Cries  of  “  Never,  never.”]  I  say  that  these  men  can  not  be  blind  to  these 
facts — they  are  not  blind.  Even  their  fourteenth  amendment  to  the  Consti¬ 
tution  that  I  spoke  of  did  not  require  that  negroes  should  be  allowed  to  vote, 
but  left  each  State  to  exclude  them  from  voting.  It  was  only  a  year  or  two 
ago  that  they  had  the  audacity  to  say  that  the  negro  should  be  allowed  to 
vote.  Now  they  claim  the  right  to  give  them  compulsory  suffrage  in  the 
Southern  States;  let  that  be  done,  and  how  long  will  it  be  before  they  have 
compulsory  suffrage  at  the  North?  If  you  give  them  votes  down  there, 
don’t  they  help  to  govern  you  ?  Do  they  not  help  to  elect  Presidents  and 
Vice-Presidents?  Do  they  not  send  members  to  Congress  to  override  those 
you  send ;  and  what  nonsense  it  is  to  say  that  this  matter  does  not  concern  us 
here  in  West  Virginia  or  in  Ohio,  whether  the  negro  in  Georgia  or  Alabama 
has  a  right  to  vote.  His  vote  there  kills  my  vote.  He  sends  a  member  t« 
Congress  whose  vote  kills  the  vote  of  my  member  of  Congress.  He  sends 
two  carpet-baggers  there  who  vote  down  the  great  State  of  Pennsylvania  or 
New  York.  It  is  a  question  which  interests  you.  Our  objection  to  negro- 


15 

voting  is  not  an  objection  founded  merely  on  prejudice.  We  are  against  the 
disfranchisement  of  white  men,  because  we  believe  that  all  such  legislation  is 
wrong  and  improper ;  but  we  are  not  in  favor  of  giving  a  vote  to  the  negro, 
because  we  believe  that  he  is  not  fit  to  enjoy  that  right. 

A  few  words  more,  my  friends,  and  I  have  done.  I  was  sitting  in  the  New 
York  Convention,  the  other  day,  and  looking  round  the  walls  of  Tammany, 
and  seeing  on  them  those  beautiful  escutcheons  that  bore  the  arms  of  the 
different  States,  I  amused  myself  with  reading  the  mottoes  of  the  different 
States,  and  presently  I  came  to  that  of  West  Virginia — “  Montani  semper 
liberi,”  as  translated,  “  Mountaineers  are  always  free,”  and  I  asked  myself, 
“  Good  heavens !  who  was  it  that  put  that  motto  at  the  head  of  that  coat-of- 
arms,  with  thousands  upon  thousands,  all  born  upon  the  soil  of  this  State, 
loving  their  country  as  they  do  their  lives,  disfranchised?”  And  when  I 
looked  at  it  again  it  seemed  to  be  the  work  of  some  demon,  who  was  uttering 
it  in  irony  and  scorn ;  and  I  thought  of  your  disfranchising  Constitution  and 
of  your  disfranchising  registry  laws,  and  as  I  thought  of  these  things  it 
seemed  to  me  that  if  I  were  a  Radical  member  of  your  ^Legislature  the  first 
thing  I  would  do,  for  honesty’s  sake,  would  be  to  expunge  that  motto  from 
the  arms  of  the  State.  [Great  applause.] 

But,  my  friends  of  West  Virginia,  do  your  duty.  Do  it  well  and  earnestly 
this  year.  Let  the  Democratic  party  go  into  power — as,  by  the  grace  of 
God,  I  hope  and  believe  it  will  [shouts  of  “  Amen  !  amen !”] — and  when  you 
get  the  power  in  this  old  State — or  new  State — of  West  Virginia,  then  you 
may  hold  up  your  coat-of-arms  and  proudly  read,  “  Montani  semper  liberi  /” 
[Great  cheers.] 


